Troops shoot dead two Palestinians in West Bank raids

Palestinian officials said Israeli troops killed two men, including a customs officer, in separate raids in the West Bank yesterday, as the military confirmed a death and “hits” during its overnight operations.
The raids were carried out before dawn in the Qalandia refugee camp and the town of Tubas, residents and officials said.
Palestinian sources identified the men killed as Ahmad Nidal Aslan, 19, from Qalandia, and Abdul Nasser Muhannad Sarhan, 23, from Tubas.
In a statement to AFP, the Israeli military said it “apprehended two wanted fighters in the area of Tubas” during which a customs officer was killed and an Israeli soldier injured.
In Qalandia, the military said its soldiers responded “with fire” to a violent riot, during which “hits were identified”.
Residents of Qalandia said teenage Aslan was killed when Israeli forces shot him after they entered the town to demolish the home of Mohamed Manasra, who Israel accuses of being a fighter and carrying out a attack on a West Bank settlement in February.
Clashes erupted after the troops blew up the second floor of the building. Six men were wounded, they added.
“At dawn, the occupation soldiers fired two bullets at Ahmad. He was taken to hospital where he died,” a resident said, declining to be identified for safety reasons.
Further north in Tubas, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli troops shot dead Sarhan and wounded two others.
“The Israeli army raided the town of Tubas at dawn and arrested two young men,” a resident of the town said, also declining to be identified.
“As they were leaving, they fired at Sarhan and another young man.”
The Palestinian customs authority said Sarhan was one of its officers. The health ministry said the death toll from an Israeli raid on the town of Tulkarem on Tuesday had risen to six after a Palestinian shot by Israeli troops died of his wounds.
The Israeli military said its forces “eliminated” a local Hamas commander in the raid on the town’s refugee camp.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and regularly carries out raids there.
Since the war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s unprecedented October first storming of Israel last year, violence has soared in the occupied territory, with at least 589 Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or settlers, according to the Palestinian authorities.